I'm really not a fan of Christmas. It's more of an inconvenience than it is something to celebrate that's for sure. Which, I guess, is what Christians are best at. Inconvenience.

"Hey lets make a stupid holiday where everyone gives gifts to each other." Great, now its a fucking mission to get a spot at Indro shopping centre car park. Thanks, Jesus.

"Hey lets teach our youth the value of marriage, by instructing them that pre-marital sex is a sin." Great, now its a fucking mission to get into this girl's pants. Thanks, Jesus.

"Hey, you can't become an altar boy until you've polished my crucifix... no this one." And so forth. The Christians have a lot to answer for.

On the bah humbug theme, I'm also not really a fan New Years. I'm all for drinking, in fact I've got a beer in hand right now (and have been pretty much in that state since I left work on the Friday before Christmas). Its just such a fucking stupid event. Thousands of mostly drunk people cramming into some shitty riverside park to see some shitty fireworks, then going home again. What a waste of time and a waste of your perfectly good shoes some random just threw up on.

A house party is of course infinitely better. But even so, no matter how good your party is the house party two down always sounds way cooler. Their music is louder, everyone sounds happier (louder), hell, even the boys in blue drop in its that good. You'd head over, but you can't free yourself of the conversation you've become involved in with the guy who works for Queensland Rail. You're tempted to say that train sets aren't cool, no matter how big they are. And that unlimited free train travel isn't a perk.

My favourite, and probably only memorable, New Years was where me, some dude and some random chick ditched the stagnating party we were at, some how got a lift into the Valley and got on the piss there. The night ended, literally, with a full English breakfast washed down with bourbon and coke. Not a bad way to bring in the new year. And in my opinion that's a far better celebration of it. For a start you managed to not only get over the arbitrary 12:00 threshold, but you made it to dawn. The real New Years Day, you saw the sun come up rather than a 59 turning into a 00. You also managed to not pass out in a pool of your own vomit, or put away a fatty. Both terrible ways to start a year. The bourbons actually went pretty well with the breakfast. I recommend it.

Last year, I avoided the house party NYE by avoiding houses in general. By camping on Moreton Island (as described somewhat here). The Pajero was nearly lost to the ocean more than once, and the weather was unkind given the hilariously inadequate sleeping arrangements. It was a barrel of laughs though, although probably sounds boring as hell especially when in blog form. The mixture of an island near deserted due to the weather, beer in hand 4wd stupidity (no permanent police presence on the island, and they never bother to come to the Eastern side) and generally just being obnoxious pricks made for a very entertaining week. The island itself isn't really exciting at all, there's sand-hills and a lake. That's it.

This New Years I'm doing a similar thing, but at Fraser. Fraser is basically the same as Moreton. It's just bigger. Its got like 3 (or more) lakes. It's got more sand-hills. It's got more sand. It also has more police, but it also has more tourists. Of course at this time of year, the tourists aren't Germans, Brits and Dutch. They are brick layers, concreters and the occasional scientist.

The last time I was at Fraser, it was deserted. The place was like Mt Glorious on Driftmas night, which was pretty awesome really. Fraser that is. We had some incredibly stupid race on a sandy track across the middle of the Island reaching yawn-defying speeds of up 80km/h. Scary enough to turn your beer into foam. This time we'll be lucky if we can swing a dingo without hitting flannelette.

Given that Fraser isn't really great for boating, the infamous roof-boat won't be making an appearance. In its stead will be the Pajero Drive(ing) Theater. Basically some banged up Pentium 4, a 12 volt psu, a large (hopefully shockproofed) hard drive stocked full of current and classic (aka 1980s) movies and TV shows. Add to the mix a couple of monitors around the place, easily removable speakers in cases and a soviet fridge full of beers (not to mention the '84 Pajero Megamix) and it should be a good week.

At worst, it'll make waiting for a flat bed on the side of a highway much more entertaining.

Comment:

Captcha (calculate this) :
Name to post as (not unique) : (Set default name here.)